A Shoreditch local journalist on the 18-storey office scheme Hackney planners wanted refused, the Mayor’s approval, and why the affordable homes are at the back of the queue
The Tower That City Hall Wanted
I have covered Shoreditch long enough to know that every planning row here eventually becomes a story about the same three things: offices, heritage and the homes that are always promised for later. Shoreditch Works, the large redevelopment on the triangular block at the southern edge of the area, has now delivered all three. City Hall has approved the scheme, overruling the advice of Hackney’s own planning officers, as reported in detail by the Hackney Citizen in its piece on City Hall approving Shoreditch Works after Hackney planners urged refusal.
The numbers are worth setting out plainly. The scheme, by developer Linea Properties with architects KPF, covers eleven buildings, including six new structures between six and eighteen storeys, topped by an eighteen-storey tower named Verso. It includes more than 57,000 square metres of office space and 78 homes, of which 35 per cent are affordable, below Hackney’s 50 per cent target. Affordable workspace amounts to just over 2,200 square metres, a little over five per cent of the office floorspace.
How It Got Here
The application was submitted in October 2024. Hackney’s planning officers recommended refusal on two main grounds: harm to local heritage and insufficient affordable workspace. At a marathon committee meeting in February, the decision was deferred. In March, the developer asked the Mayor of London to take the application over, and the Deputy Mayor for Planning, Jules Pipe, called it in. On 7 October he approved it, subject to a legal agreement that City Hall wants signed by 21 January 2027.
On the affordable workspace, Pipe said he accepted that this was the maximum the scheme could viably provide. On heritage, he concluded that the public benefits clearly and convincingly outweighed the harm. Those are the two sentences that will be quoted at every Shoreditch planning meeting for the next decade.
The Homes Come Last
The detail that has caused most concern locally is the order of construction. The restoration of the listed Webb Terrace on Worship Street, a Grade II star building, and the homes themselves come late in the programme. To stop the developer simply building the offices and walking away, the draft agreement says Linea cannot occupy more than 85 per cent of the new commercial floorspace until the listed building works and the homes are complete. Pipe acknowledged Hackney’s concerns about timing, while citing the constraints of a tight urban site.
Anyone who has lived in East London for more than a few years will recognize the pattern. The offices go up first, because offices pay. The homes come later, because homes are the condition. The heritage restoration comes last, because nobody ever went bankrupt waiting to repair a terrace.
A Flying Car For Comparison
The London Prat this week carried a piece on how Elon Musk unveiled the flying Tesla Roadster nine years late, with customers paying deposits for a car with no price and a production date pushed to 2028. Its best line is that the car escaped gravity but not the production schedule. I thought of it reading the Shoreditch Works timetable. The tower will rise. The offices will fill. The homes, like the Roadster, have a date on paper. Locals will believe it when they can knock on the door.
The Neighbours
There are also losers closer to home. The developer’s own consultants found significant losses of daylight and sunlight at eight neighbouring properties on Curtain Road and Holywell Row. Officers regretted the loss of nearly all the unlisted post-war industrial buildings on the site, the kind of solid, unglamorous warehouses that gave Shoreditch its character before the glass arrived. For people who have lived on those streets for decades, the question is simple and personal: where will the afternoon light go? Most long-standing residents in this part of Shoreditch are not against change. They just want some of it to be good for the people already here.
The Bigger Picture
Shoreditch Works does not sit in isolation. Hackney’s own Future Shoreditch plan, consulted on earlier this year, set out ambitions for up to 11,000 jobs, around 500 more homes and much tighter rules on office-only buildings and tall towers. The council has argued for years that Shoreditch should not become a monoculture of offices. City Hall’s decision suggests that, when push comes to shove, London-wide priorities about jobs and investment can outweigh a borough’s preferences. That tension between local and regional planning will shape this neighbourhood for the next fifteen years.
You can follow my reporting on Shoreditch, Hoxton and the streets around Old Street on my author page, where I will be keeping track of whether the 85 per cent rule holds.
A Last Look At The Triangle
Standing at the corner of Worship Street this week, I watched a delivery rider, a man in a gilet with a laptop bag and a woman pushing a pram cross the junction in the same thirty seconds. That is Shoreditch now: logistics, offices and families, all sharing the same pavement. Shoreditch Works will add a great deal more of the second category. The test of City Hall’s decision will be whether it adds enough of the third. The homes, after all, are the only part of the scheme anybody will actually live in.